just to differentiate “Shopping Complexes” from normal Shopping Areas I’ve mentioned on another page : these Complexes are artificial and man-made consisting of a handful of large buildings to form a gigantic mall both above ground AND underneath – a different layout than your usual mall in the States where a handful of department stores are connected through 1~3 floors of independent stores . they are mostly amassed South of the Han River, since North in the “old” Seoul there simply is no more space to build such a monolith .

equally important geographically in modern Korea is that all are in some way connected to a train or subway line because if you want to open shop, nowhere is better than “Yeok-Sae-Gwon” near train and bus stations . I might add here the unique case of Japan : where railroad companies built railroads .. then built hotels above major stations, department stores next to it, and all sorts of underground passage around it with more shopping areas AND restaurants, forming mega-complexes in each major station .